Metal Movable Type
In this blog post the topic is going to be on the first metal movable type that was created in Korea. As a Korean, this stood out to me to start researching.
What is a metal movable type?
It is a type of printing consisting of a separate sculpture, usually with one character or different characters, so that the sculpture can be freely assembled or rearranged to print the combination or line of choice.
Movable metal type in Korea
This metal movable type was invented first in South Korea. The oldest existing book called “Jikji ”, the original title of Jikji is “Baegun hwasang chorok buljo jikji simche yojeol” used metal movable type and was printed in 1377, during the Goryeo dynasty. It was first invented by Choe Yun-ui around the year of 1234.
At first, Korea was not the first nation to create metal movable type, but Dr. Byeon Seon Park saw the book “JIkji” and started researching and found proof that it was printed with movable metal type and Korea was the first ever country to create movable metal type. One of the proofs was in the postscript of the last page of Jikji. It was proven because it said ju-ja which means metal type.
How did this method played big role in developing printing
It is important because before, wood printing didn’t allow multiple printing. If the publisher wanted to print more than one, the wood board had to be curved as the number of printing the publisher wanted, but this metal movement type allowed it to print as many books if the publisher had a set of movable metal alphabet types.
References
http://korea.prkorea.com/wordpress/english/2012/03/22/the-greatest-invention-movable-metal-type-printing-and-jikji/
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